73. -72-
Nina
Confidence. The remark almost made me laugh out loud. Dorian truly had no idea how crazy obsessed I was with him. There was no way I would leave him, not in this lifetime, not ever. He was mine. Forever.
Still, the way he saw himself, as a monster that wasn’t worthy of love, worried me.
At one point in our conversation, I almost grabbed his shoulders and shook him to stop talking bullshit about himself.
I would never leave him because he killed someone.
We both grew up in a dark, unsettling world full of violence, guns, and blood.
I was used to it. And truth be told, I wasn’t surprised by the killings.
The shift in him was the only thing that startled me.
The lethal glint in his hazel eyes, the dark aura surrounding him, the unwavering hand delivering the final blows.
Those were the things that gave me the creeps because…
well, Dorian wasn’t like that. At least, he shouldn’t be, according to everyone and everything.
Yes, there were signs he contributed to his brothers’ crimes and deeds, but still, nothing stood up. Nothing…
The memory struck me completely unprepared.
“Marrying the man who murdered your grandfather?” Zyon threw the question into my face two weeks ago, and I felt the blood draining from my face.
With Malin in the hospital, Giovanni’s debt, and my father’s shitshow, I’d forgotten to ask Dorian if it was true or if Zyon was only testing me, but thinking about it…
“Did you kill my grandfather?” I asked Dorian without hesitation, clenching my fist so hard my nails dug into my palm.
“Yes,” he replied, raising his eyes from his hands. He was preparing to tell me something else, something from his past he considered important. But his expression changed from deeply sad to curious when I mentioned Giovanni. “I also have a deal with my brothers that when we catch Dino, he’s mine.”
“Why?” I breathed.
“He tried to kill Zyon,” Dorian replied matter-of-factly, raising a brow as if I should already know that. “Orders from Giovanni, remember?”
“Yes,” I whispered. “But I don’t understand why you don’t lie about it?” I pressed my palm against my chest, rubbing it slowly, because the pain that slashed through my heart was barely manageable. “You could have just said that Malin did it.”
“I would never lie to you about something so important.” He removed my hand from my chest, his thumb brushing my knuckles tenderly. “You know why he had to die. You understand the rules better than anyone.”
“I do.” I smiled sadly. “But I don’t want to hear it ever again.” Dorian’s brows furrowed in confusion. “I don’t want to be reminded that you murdered the man who made me who I am.”
“How can you just look past it?” he asked, disbelief lacing his words.
“I accepted it the moment it happened,” I admitted, almost ashamed of my feelings. “I still love him. He’s still my hero. But he crossed the line.”
Dorian looked more and more confused with every word I said, so I knew I’d have to give him everything.
“The attack on Amelia Santangelo was the last straw,” I said, looking away from him. “We argued for hours, and then I left, furious because the only explanation I ever got from him was that no one would defy him. He demanded blind obedience and forced it on everyone.”
I sighed, and my chin quivered when the memories of the day I found Matilda in the hospital, bloody, bruised, and barely functioning flooded my brain.
“Amelia was like my mother. Matilda and Diana were like my sisters. And…” I inhaled sharply. “Because of Giovanni, I lost them.”
“Fuck,” Dorian muttered, pulling me into his arms. “I didn’t know that.”
“How could you?” I pressed my cheek against his chest. “You lived your perfect life while mine collapsed.”
His body went completely still. It dragged my thoughts away from that dreadful day, but then he placed a kiss on the top of my head. I briefly closed my eyes, memories crashing into me with the full force of another inevitable moment.
“I was in a car accident that night,” I whispered, barely audible, unable to stop the tears from falling. His arms embraced me tighter. “The one that fucked up my hand.”
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he breathed, brushing my hair.
“Don’t be.” I pulled away a little and pecked his jaw.
The gentle stubble tingled my skin. “I don’t need your pity.
I just wanted you to know why I made my peace with it.
” I sat straighter, my hand resting against his chest. “But promise me never to mention it, okay? It’s a closed chapter.
I won’t allow Giovanni’s ghost to stand between us. ”
“As you wish,” Dorian said, cupping my face, his thumbs wiping the wetness from under my eyes. “I won’t ever say his name if that’s what you want.”
I nodded, a small smile appearing on my lips, yet his severe expression and pain shining in his eyes sent unpleasant shivers down my spine.
“What’s wrong?” I took hold of his wrists and removed his hands from my face.
“There’s another ghost…” He trailed off, gulping thickly. My fingers closed around his large hand, squeezing supportively.
“I’m right here, Dorian. Whenever you’re ready.”
Without another word, he closed the distance between us and connected our lips in a loving kiss.
My arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him as close as possible.
My body woke up to life, like every time he kissed me, but there was something else between us now.
I couldn’t quite name it, but his touches felt different.
Slowly, too slowly for my liking, he moved from my mouth through my jaw to my neck, peppering it with soft kisses. My heart thundered against my ribcage, my fingers entangling into his hair as he pulled quiet moans from me.
“You’re so fucking perfect, Nina,” he whispered against my pulse point, his hot breath fanning over my sensitive skin. “I don’t deserve you.”
I clutched his shoulders and straddled him, because for a brief moment, I thought he might run away from me.
“You do,” I claimed with absolute certainty, cupping his cheeks.
“I don’t want my past to be the thing that destroys this…” A shaky exhale left him. “Whatever it is we have.”
“It won’t.”
“You can’t promise that.” He looked away from me, but I forced our gazes back together.
“I can promise I’ll still be here when you’re done telling me.”
We didn’t say anything for a while. His eyes searched mine as though he was looking for the slightest trace of anything that would tell him to stop before it was too late.
But he found nothing, and the tension finally cracked.
When we kissed again, there was no urgency behind it, only the quiet reassurance that we were still together.
The outside world ceased to exist. My body wrapped around his, holding him close, feeling the heat radiating from him, hearing his deep breaths and the beats of his heart. My skin burned with every touch of his fingers against my exposed flesh.
There was almost unbearable tenderness behind every contact. The familiar hunger was still there, but it no longer guided us. I traced every line of his face as though I wanted to memorize the man hidden behind the mask he built to survive. He closed his eyes, and a shaky breath slipped free.
My fingertips tangled in his hair, and the distance between us disappeared, replaced by quiet touches that spoke louder than any declaration.
There was no rush to reach the end, no desperate need to prove anything.
For the first time since we’d met, it felt like we weren’t chasing desire. We were searching for peace.
When he entered me, something inside me snapped into place. I felt as if we were one, body, mind, and soul. There wasn’t Nina and Dorian. There was only us.
Dorian’s forehead rested against mine, our breathing falling into the same rhythm.
He opened his hooded eyes, looking at me with an almost heartbreaking intensity.
I smiled, and his shoulders relaxed just a little more as his embrace tightened around me.
I pressed my lips against his temple, his cheek, the corner of his mouth, hoping every silent kiss would reach the places words never could.
You’re not alone.
You don’t have to carry it anymore.
He would never believe those words if I spoke them aloud. But perhaps he could feel them. And somewhere between his trembling breath against my skin and the way he held me as if I might disappear, I understood something that broke me all over again.
He wasn’t making love to me because he needed my body. He was clinging to the certainty that I was alive. Whatever happened in his past, whatever tragedy shattered him, he needed to feel me, to know that he hadn’t lost me. That I was still there.
So when our breathing grew heavy, and my world exploded in euphoria, I clung to him more. I kissed him harder. Because if this was the first time he allowed someone to see the broken pieces that barely held together, I needed him to feel my love.